Any projector that boasts the 4,000 lumen rating that the Epson PowerLite 1880 MultiMedia Projector ($1399 direct) offers is an obvious candidate for a mid- to large-size conference room or classroom. At that level of brightness, you should be able to throw an image that's large enough to let you see details easily even from the back of the room and still stands up to ambient light. The PowerLite 1880 lives up to that expectation and adds high quality for data images as well, making it a particularly good choice for the job.

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Built around an LCD-based, XGA (1,024 by 768) engine, the PowerLite 1880 weighs just 7.4 pounds. That's a pound heavier than the DLP-based WXGA (1,280 by 800) Optoma TW762 ($1,100 street, 3 stars), another 4,000 lumen projector that I recently reviewed. However, the two are close enough in weight to share essentially the same level of portability.

Projectors in this general weight class are most likely to wind up permanently installed or on a cart for moving from room to room. On the other hand, they're also light enough for carrying with you at least occasionally. Optoma even provides a soft carrying case with the TW762. Epson doesn't provide one for the 1880.

Of course, the 1880 is much brighter than most people need for a portable projector. For that matter, even the 3,000 lumen NEC Display Solutions NP-V300X ($779 direct, 3.5 stars) is bright for a portable. In that context, the lack of a carrying case isn't much of an oversight. Still, if you want to use the 1880 as an extraordinarily bright portable projector, you'll have to buy a carrying case separately.

Connections, Setup, and BrightnessSetting the 1880 up is mostly standard fare, with a manual focus and manual 1.6x zoom. One interesting extra is a top and bottom digital keystone adjustment slider to supplement the digital left and right keystone adjustment. (Keystone correction lets you adjust the image to maintain a rectangular shape.)

The back panel offers a typical assortment of connectors, including an HDMI 1.3 port for a computer or video source, two VGA inputs for computers or component video, both S-Video and composite video ports, and both USB Type A and USB Type B connectors. The first lets you read data from a USB key or connect a document camera. The second lets you connect to a computer, both for sending data images and for controlling the PC's mouse pointer from the projector's remote.

The 78-inch wide (98-inch diagonal) image I tested with was easily bright enough to stand up to the ambient light in a typical conference room or classroom. With the lights off, in fact, it was too bright for comfortable viewing, although switching to Eco mode, rated at 3,200 lumens, solved that problem. Note too that with Eco mode the rated lamp life increases by a third, from 3,000 hours to 4,000.

Data and Video Image QualityThe 1880 delivers high-quality data images. On our standard suite of DisplayMate tests, the color balance was off in projector's brightest mode, with the brightest shades of gray showing a yellow tinge. However, it's not unusual for projectors to have color balance problems in their brightest modes.

Much more significant is that the color balance issue did not show up with other settings, and the projector sailed through the rest of tests without a problem. Colors were vibrant and fully saturated, both black text on a white background and white text on a black background were crisp and readable even at the smallest sizes we test with, and the image was rock solid with an analog connection even on screens that tend to bring out pixel jitter.

Video quality was usable for movie-length sessions, which makes the 1880 above par for a data projector on this score. However, it's well short of what you'd want for watching your favorite movie or TV show. I saw a moderately serious problem with shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), with large areas of the screen turning into a solid black for scenes that tend to bring out the problem. On the other hand, the projector handled skin tones well, and I didn't see any posterization (colors changing suddenly where they should change gradually).

The fan noise also demands mention. I tend to be tolerant of fan noise, but found the 1880, with its 39 decibel rating, loud enough to catch my attention from my usual position when testing, sitting two or three feet from the projector. In Eco mode, rated at 35 decibels, it was easy to ignore. If you tend to be sensitive to fan noise, you may well consider this a problem if you're sitting near the projector.

On the plus side, the sound system, with its 10 watt mono speaker, is easily loud enough to fill a large conference room or classroom. The sound quality won't win any awards, but it's good enough so spoken words are understandable, which is more than you can say for many projectors in this weight class.

The Epson PowerLite 1880 offers far more to like than not, with a bright, high-quality data image, better quality video than most data projectors, better audio than most data projectors, and more. All of these pluses add up to making the projector our new Editors' Choice as an XGA projector for a large conference room or classroom.

M. David Stone is an award-winning freelance writer and computer industry consultant. Although a confirmed generalist, with writing credits on subjects as varied as ape language experiments, politics, quantum physics, and an overview of a...

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